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John Oliver Sells His Bob Ross Painting Raises Record $1.5 Million for Public Television

By
Andy Corbley
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Bob Ross painting Cabin at Sunset - credit, screenshot via John Oliver's Junk - Copy
Bob Ross painting Cabin at Sunset – credit, screenshot via John Oliver’s Junk

GNN reported recently that a Los Angeles auction house recently handled the sale of three paintings by the famous TV artist Bob Ross, with the proceeds of over $600,000 going to fund public television and radio.

Inspired by the effort, HBO’s comedy news host John Oliver announced that he too had an original Ross that he would auction for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

On the last episode of the most recent season of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the British-born TV host revealed an auction catalogue called “John Oliver’s Junk” headlined by Cabin at Sunset, which Ross painted in season 10 of his show The Joy of Painting.

It managed to set a new auction record for a Bob Ross painting of $1,035,000 after 35 bids.

“We’ve actually accumulated a bunch of weird artifacts on this show over the years that we could definitely auction off to raise some much needed money,” Oliver said on last week’s show. “I am proud to announce last week tonight’s first ever auction in aid of public media.”

The proceeds from the sales of Cabin at Sunset and 34 other items totaled $1.5 million which has been transferred to the Public Media Bridge Fund which helps support stations and programs in need of funding.

Most of the items included show memorabilia, including a pair of golden sneakers Oliver promised to wear almost decade ago if former FIFA President Sep Blatter resigned, a cabbage that Oliver married in a segment on AI-generated art, and a jockstrap worn by Russel Crowe.

A pair of VIP tickets to a live show taping caught over $110,000.

OTHER STORIES TO INSPIRE: Thousands in Donations Pour into Animal Shelter Where Jon Stewart Adopted His Beloved Dog That Just Passed Away

While the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a GSE that funds public radio and television in America, was receiving over $1 billion of its budget from the government, anyone who watches PBS or listens to NPR notes the frequency with which they run pledge drives. This along with other for-profit productions generates substantial revenue that helps keep the CBP operational.

It was the idea of Bob Ross Inc., the company that manages the painter’s likeness and property, to hold the auction in support of public television, something which he loved so much.

“I think this actually would have been Bob’s idea,” said Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc. “And when I think about that, it makes me very proud.”

TELEVISION STORIES: Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Returns to Modern Screens With Hopeful Stories of Wildlife Problems Solved

Home in the Valley, (1993) Cliffside, (1990) and Winter’s Peace (1993) were priced to start at Bonham’s auctioneers at between $25,000 – $30,000, but all three quickly exploded in action.

The first brought $229,100, the second $114,800, and Winter’s Peace went for a staggering $318,000.

WATCH the segment below… 

SHARE This Happy Little Auction By John Oliver In Support Of Public TV…

“There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.” – O. Henry

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Good News Network
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By Davey Gravy for Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.” – O. Henry

(Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers—in the US and around the globe!)

Photo by: Davey Gravy for Unsplash+

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

By Davey Gravy for Unsplash+

Good News in History, November 27

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Good News Network
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Happy Birthday to Bill Nye “The Science Guy” who turns 70 today. Nye, a science educator, comedian, and author is best known as the host of the PBS children’s science show, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Nye abandoned a career in mechanical engineering to pursue sketch comedy, writing and performing for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he regularly conducted wacky scientific experiments, setting the stage for his famous television persona. WATCH the scientist, who always wears a bow tie, explain how he became The Science Guy… (1955)

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The News Media Over-Reports Homicides By 4,300% in the US, Shows New Study

By
Andy Corbley
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Photo by Muhammad Taha Ibrahima via unsplash
Photo by Muhammad Taha Ibrahima via unsplash

For almost 30 years, GNN has been busting global media’s 24-hour gloom and doom cycle with the premise that bad news doesn’t have to sell, and good news isn’t rare at all.

A case-in-point for this outlet’s publishing mission is a study recently released on Our World in Data that showed how bad news events like murder and terrorism are extraordinarily over-covered by American media.

For example, homicide receives approximately 4,300% more media coverage than its share of deaths across the American population every year.

Put differently, if every death in America was reported on, news stories on homicides would be fewer in number by a factor of 43.

According to the study the same is true for terrorism—by a staggering 18,000 percent.

Relying on Media Cloud, an open-access platform for media analysis, the team behind the study analyzed news headlines covering the 12 most-common causes of death in America, plus homicide, drug overdoses, and terrorism, as these were perceived by the authors to receive an outsized share of media coverage.

The team then gathered news stories from three of the largest news outlets in America: the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the news website of Fox News. Their criteria was set to ensure the stories focused on these causes of death as the topic, rather than in passing.

“Heart disease and cancer accounted for 56% of deaths among these 15 causes, but together they received just 7% of the media coverage,” the study team, consisting of Hannah Ritchie, Tuna Acisu, and Edouard Mathieu, found and wrote in their presentation.

“Rare—but dramatic—events such as homicides and terrorism received more than half of all media coverage,” despite together representing less than 1% of all deaths in America.

– credit, Ritchie et al on CC-BY License

Drug overdoses were also overrepresented—by 4-times their share of mortality events in the American population. Suicide was overrepresented by 80%.

“Nearly six-in-ten Americans still see international terrorism as a critical threat to the United States, despite the domestic impact on the US being relatively low for two decades,” the authors write. Indeed, terrorism killed just 16 Americans last year, about half the number of Americans killed in elevator accidents. If you’re not thinking twice about climbing into a rickety elevator, than you probably shouldn’t overly worry about terrorism.

BREAK THE BAD NEWS CYCLE: Instead of ‘We Are What We Eat,’ the Science of Kindness Says ‘We Are What We See’ in Daily Life

It doesn’t appear to be down to a conspiracy in media, but rather because American reporters are just following the absolute basics of ‘storytelling’. Heart disease and cardiovascular events kill 2,000 Americans every day, so the headline would be the same as yesterday’s and the day before that, with little variation.

A dramatic event like a plane crash or a gun battle in an American downtown area, has eye-witnesses, dramatic recounting, and enough individual details to make a story.

MORE POSITIVE HEADLINES: Five Top Headlines that Showcase the World’s Progress in the Climate Fight

Ritchie, Acisu, and Mathieu write that the vast majority of news consumers cite a motivation to be better informed, and to keep track of what’s happening in the world, as the reasons for their attention to the news.

Even though it’s clear that the number of news stories on a topic doesn’t actually reflect the overall state of a society, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking it does, and feel depressed because you’re led to believe life is full of malicious, despairing savagery.

SHARE This Perspective Shifting News With Your Friends On Social Media… 

10th Grader Saves Stepfather’s Life with His Newly-Learned CPR Skills Taught in Schools

By
Andy Corbley
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Anthony Killinger with dad (CPR training photo by Martin Splitt)
Anthony Killinger with dad (CPR training photo by Martin Splitt)

Less than a year after Anthony Killinger attended a CPR course in his school gymnasium, his mother was at the door of his bedroom saying she thought her husband was dead.

Running downstairs, Killinger found his stepfather, Mike Reese, unconscious on the ground making a snoring sound.

With a prayer to God to “take the wheel,” the Lancaster teen executed what he had been taught.

“I call 911 and the dude on the phone is telling me start doing CPR. I did it for like 8 minutes and then he started breathing again,” Killinger told WIVB 4 in Buffalo. “I had to check his pulse, but it kept fading.”

Those 8 minutes prolonged not only Reese’s life, but his brain, as cardiac arrest deprives the brain of oxygen rich blood, often leading to neurological tissue damage. The EMS arrived to relieve Killinger, and later told him that the quick-thinking saved his stepfather’s life.

“The doctor said it’s like a 9% chance to just survive cardiac arrest,” Killinger said. “Then it’s another thing to survive and have no brain damage. It was crazy that he survived and didn’t have anything.”

Reese underwent open-heart surgery back in 2018. This time, his stay in the hospital was a little shorter: just a week, before he was released with a defibrillator implant. Killinger’s house baseball team coach, stepdad and stepson are best friends, and the moment they reunited in the hospital was pretty emotional, the teen said.

CPR HEROES: A Stranger Delivered CPR for 20 Minutes to Save a Montreal Man –Then Vanished

WIVB spoke also to Reese, who said that he was dealing happily with fatigue—a common after effect of cardiac arrest—all while thanking God that Killinger went to bat for him at his most desperate hour.

CPR courses are often given out at events, at schools, or routinely in fire stations for free. Learning it can save a life in any place at any moment, as GNN has reported over and over and over again.

WATCH the story below from WIVB 4 news… 

SHARE This Young Man’s Rescue Of His Stepdad With His New CPR Training… 

Tribe Releases Native Elk Back onto 17,000 Sacred Sierra Nevada Acres

By
Andy Corbley
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Tule elk scamper away through the hills - credit - released by Gov. Newsom's office
Tule elk scamper away through the hills – credit – released by Gov. Newsom’s office

A California Indian nation celebrated the return of 17,000 acres of ancestral lands by releasing several of the region’s native Tule elk to roam the hills again for the first time in decades.

The Tule River Indian Tribe elders and community members gathered around the large steel transport containers and watched the animals scurry off into the foothills of the southwestern Sierra Nevada in a ceremony sweet closure decades in the making.

The 17,030 acres are made up of former ranch properties that connect the Tule River Tribe’s existing reservation with a large block of US Forest Service land that connects with Giant Sequoia National Monument in Sequoia National Forest.

By turning the land, known as the Yowlumne Hills, over to the tribe, a substantial conservation corridor for animals including these Tule elk will be established.

“The tribe is very invested in doing a lot of these kind of key species reintroductions, not only for their members, but also for the health and wellbeing of the ecosystem,” Geneva E. B. Thompson, deputy secretary for tribal affairs at the California Natural Resources Agency, told SFGATE by phone, adding that the tribe also reintroduced beavers to the South Fork Tule River last year.

The Tule elk is the smallest elk subspecies of North America, with males topping out at around 550 pounds and females at 425 pounds. They are a conservation success story, as overhunting reduced their population in California’s Central Valley marshlands to just a single breeding pair as far as we know. Conservation action has seen their numbers grow to 4,000, and they can be seen in many California reservations and parks.

CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE: Smashing 6 Million Sea Urchins with Hammers Saved a California Kelp Paradise Thanks to Volunteer Divers

The Tule tribe partnered with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to reintroduce the elk, with the animals brought in from another managed population.

The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) loved the idea of the land-back program, as it allows the Tule Tribe to steward the area and its animals, protect them from wildfires, and preserve the integrity of important regional watersheds. The agency’s Tribal Nature-Based Solutions program saw 1,000 acres of historic land returned to the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel in San Diego County earlier this year for the same purposes.

TRIBAL LAND RETURNING: Yurok Tribe Celebrates Again as Ancestral Homelands are Returned–in Wake of Historic Dam Removal

“This land return demonstrates the very essence of tribal land restoration, which expands access to essential food and medicinal resources,” Tule River Tribal Council Chairman Lester R. Nieto Jr. said in a CNRA press release.

“It also supports the ongoing preservation of cultural sites, deepens environmental stewardship, and restores wildlife reintroduction efforts. The Tribe envisions this land located in the Yowlumne Hills as a place to gather, heal, and simply be, for members of the Tule River Indian Tribe.”

WATCH the elk run off into the hills… 

SHARE The Return Of This Land To The Animals And Tribes Of Its Past… 

Always Smiling Amphibian Featured on Mexican Money Is So Cute it’s Being Hoarded and Never Spent

By
Andy Corbley
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The axolotl on the Mexican 50 peso note
The front (left) and back (right) of the 2021 Mexico 50 peso note

It’s always interesting to see what images states put on their money.

Mexico recently redesigned its 50 peso note with the image of a perpetually smiling amphibian found only in the country called the axolotl, and it’s become so well loved it’s being hoarded.

Thomas Graeme at the Guardian brought the story to light that a report from the Mexican government detailed how some $150 million worth of 50 peso notes are out of circulation at any given time.

The reason, he wrote on Friday, was simple: they loved the design, which featured an emblazonment of “Gorda,” an axolotl that lived at a Mexico City museum. The note was so well done, it actually won Note of the Year at the International Bank Note Society. Only 12% of surveyed hoarders said they hoarded a copy of every Mexican note; people were far more likely to keep just the axolotl note, a little like the $2.00 bill in the US.

That was in 2021, and some first edition banknotes are now trading at 100-times their roughly $3.00 value.

The axolotl is one of those animals that just defies convention. This salamander never loses its gills, remaining aquatic its whole life unlike other salamanders. It also has the potential to regrow any extremity, a property that’s being investigated for use in future human medicine.

MORE ON THE AXOLOTL: Perpetually-Smiling Endangered Amphibian Now Thrives in Artificial Wetlands in Mexico City

It lived in the lakes around what is today Mexico City, and when the Spaniards drained the lake of Tenochtitlan to build the new capital, it instantly made the salamanders, shaped with a perpetual smile on their face like a dolphin or golden retriever, endangered.

SHARE This News Note On A Very Special Bank Note With Your Friends… 

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt 

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Good News Network
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Getty Images for Unsplash+

Quote of the Day: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt 

Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Getty Images for Unsplash+

Good News in History, November 26

By
Good News Network
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Rued Langgaard

104 years ago today, Rued Langgaard’s “Music of the Spheres” (Sfærernes Musik) premiered at Konzerthaus in Karlsruhe, Germany. Replicating a variety of outer spatial senses through the careful and considered multi-movement work, it includes several methods of orchestral composition well ahead of its time. Several of the movements project the sense of vast space and distance, particularly through the positioning of a small, secondary orchestra off stage. READ more about the work, and listen to it… (1921)

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Egypt Becomes 26th Country to Eliminate Leading Cause of Infectious Blindness with Triumph Over Trachoma

By
Andy Corbley
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Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population of Egypt, receiving a commendation from Dr. Hanan Balkhy, Regional Director for WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region - credit WHO
Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population of Egypt, receiving a commendation from Dr. Hanan Balkhy, Regional Director for WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Region – credit WHO

Egypt has become the 26th country to eliminate trachoma as a public health concern, building on a steady string of triumphs over tropical diseases.

Having eliminated lymphatic filariasis, malaria, and now trachoma in the last 30 years, Egypt has emerged as a continental leader in the control and eradication of neglected tropical diseases.

Trachoma, caused by the bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis, is the world’s leading cause of infectious blindness, and has been documented in Egypt for over 3,000 years.

Public health efforts to address its burden began in the early 20th century, when pioneering ophthalmologist Arthur Ferguson MacCallan established Egypt’s first mobile and permanent eye hospitals and laid the groundwork for organized trachoma control globally. Yet by the 1980s, it still blinded many adults and affected over half of all children in some Nile Delta communities.

Since 2002, the Ministry of Health and Population of Egypt, in partnership with the World Health Organization and other national and international stakeholders, has pursued trachoma elimination through the WHO-endorsed SAFE strategy, which represents Surgery for trichiasis, Antibiotics to clear the causative organism, Facial cleanliness and Environmental improvement.

Between 2015 and 2025, extensive mapping and surveillance across all 27 of Egypt’s governorates showed steady reductions in the proportion of children aged 1–9 years affected by active (inflammatory) trachoma, and no significant burden of the blinding complications of trachoma in adults.

Both indicators are now below WHO elimination prevalence thresholds nationwide. In 2024, Egypt integrated trachoma surveillance into its national electronic disease reporting system, which should facilitate rapid response to any future cases.

“Egypt’s elimination of trachoma as a public health problem underscores the nation’s sustained commitment to equitable healthcare delivery and the transformative impact of initiatives such as Haya Karima, which have expanded access to safe water, sanitation, and primary care services in rural communities,” said Professor Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population.

“This achievement is a collective triumph for Egypt’s health workers, communities, and partners who collaborated to eradicate this ancient disease.”

EGYPT NEWS: Grand Egyptian Museum Finally Opens in Sight of the Pyramids After Decades of Setbacks

The country became the seventh in the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region to eliminate trachoma as a public health concern, defined as 1 in 1,000 adults with trichiasis. The region includes the Near and Middle East as far as Pakistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa, including Morocco and and Somalia.

“This milestone adds to Egypt’s strong track record in eliminating communicable diseases, including polio, measles, rubella, and most recently malaria. It demonstrates what can be achieved when political commitment, strong partnerships and years of sustained public health efforts, led by the Ministry of Health and Population, come together towards a shared vision,” said Dr. Nima Abid, WHO Representative to Egypt.

“Egypt’s achievement serves as an inspiring example for other countries in the Region and beyond.”

MORE DISEASE CONTROL VICTORIES: First African Nation to Eliminate River Blindness Treated Millions with Ivermectin to Achieve Great Success

Following Egypt’s success, trachoma remains a public health problem in 30 countries and is responsible for the blindness or visual impairment of about 1.9 million people. Blindness from trachoma is difficult to reverse. Based on April 2025 data, 103 million people live in trachoma endemic areas and are at risk of trachoma blindness.

Yet even devastatingly poor countries—such as Togo, Papua New Guinea, and Mauritania, can, and in fact already have, achieved what Egypt has.

SHARE This Latest Milestone On The March To Eliminating Disease Everywhere…

Lost Bach Pieces Performed for First Time in 320 Years: ‘Great moment for the world of music’

By
Andy Corbley
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Two musical pieces written by Johann Sebastian Bach were recently performed for the first time ever, more than 300 years after they were composed.

Both written for the organ, they are believed to date from the great composer’s very early career, when he worked as a organ tutor in Thuringia.

Germany’s Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer called the discovery of the two pieces a “great moment for the world of music.”

Both pieces were unsigned and undated when they were found in the 1990s by Mr. Peter Wollny, a Belgian Bach researcher working at the Royal Library in Brussels. Entitled Chaconne in D minor and Chaconne in G minor, Wollny wasn’t sure who had written them, but suspected they might have been Bach’s.

That hunch needed 30 years to be realized, as the archivist, now director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, wanted to absolutely sure of it.

“Stylistically, the works also contain features that can be found in Bach’s works from this period, but not in those of any other composer,” Wollny told the BBC, adding he was “99.99% sure that Bach had written the two pieces.”

Given the Bach catalogue identification tags BWV 1178 and BWV 1179, they were played for the first time in 320 years by Dutch organist Ton Koopman at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig where Bach worked for 27 years as a cantor. Koopman, as one might imagine, said he was proud to be the first person to play them, and described them as being of “of a very high quality” and ideal for both large church organs and small ones.

A Mount Rushmore composer without a shadow of a doubt, Bach is generally considered to have stood at the pinnacle of his art, with the senior classical critic at the New York Times calling him the greatest. By 1802, there were already biographies of Bach made, and manuscripts of his works being bought at huge expense. In 1850, the first of several Bach societies was organized in Leipzig.

LOST MUSICAL PIECES REVEALED: Lost Chopin Music Unearthed 200 Years After Composer’s Death Is His Most Intriguing Waltz

Claude Debussy described Bach as “a benevolent God” to whom musicians should pray before setting to work. Not one, nor two, but three Bach pieces were included on the NASA Voyager’s Golden Record.

A recent concert in Austria saw a 200-year-old Mozart piece performed for the first time when it too was discovered by an archivist under similar circumstances.

LISTEN to the piece below…

SHARE This Wonderful Discovery And How Bach Continues To Make Headlines Today…

‘Special Needs’ Can’t Stop These Kids from Being a Cowboy at Rodeo Day Camp

By
Andy Corbley
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credit - Little Pardners Rodeo
credit – Little Pardners Rodeo

In the Bay Area, California, a day at the rodeo for children with developmental challenges leaves everyone in tears at some point, either from joy or compassion.

Hosted by a cowboy whose son was born with Down Syndrome, Little ‘Pardners’ Rodeo treats 40 children aged 4 to 17 to an all-day event of cowboy/cowgirl activities.

Organized by the Exceptional Needs Network in Livermore, the children can ride ponies, practice their lassoing skills, and test their balance on the mechanical bull.

“It’s hard to find things that they can do and can do safely and have fun,” says Donnie Perry, the 10-gallon hat (and brain) behind Little Pardners. “Everybody wants to be a cowboy/cowgirl at some point in their lives, this is a way we can make that dream come true.”

Recently features on CBS News Bay Area having received the network’s Icon Award, Perry considers the 40 special needs kids that visit him each June his own children for the day.

Perry was putting on the Little Pardners Rodeo even before his son, Joshua, was born. The proud father, whose heart is almost as big as his moustache, told the CBS affiliate that God looked down and saw the love and compassion he had in his heart for challenged children, and decided to give him one of his own.

SIMILAR STORIES TO THIS: Dozens of Disabled Californians Sail for the First Time to Experience the Weightlessness of the Water

There’s a lot of trying new things for the attendants. It’s difficult at the best of times to learn how to lasso a calf, but at the rodeo, it’s one of several things the kids are encouraged to try and get the hang of.

“They just feel like they belong and aren’t being judged, looked at differently; they’re just being themselves and that’s all we ever want,” said Laura Peters of the Exceptional Needs Network.

WATCH the story below from CBS Bay Area… 

SHARE This Heartwarming Day At The Rodeo With Your Friends… 

Birds Start to Show Signs of Recovery After Bee-Harming Pesticide Ban in the EU

By
Andy Corbley
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A chaffinch, one of the birds that recovered in the study - credit, 4028mdk09 CC 3.0.
A chaffinch, one of the birds that recovered in the study – credit, 4028mdk09 CC 3.0.

The first large-scale study to investigate the impact on bird populations from the 2018 European Union ban on a universal insecticide has determined that birds have recovered as much as 3% since 2018.

Given that 57 species of birds were included in the survey, the 3% rise suddenly seems a lot more meaningful, and the scientists behind the study are confidant that the ban is positively affecting their populations.

The insecticide in question is a class of chemical called neonicotinoids, which are sprayed on crops and absorbed into the plants’ leaves where they render them effectively toxic to insects that like to munch on them.

Introduced to the EU the 1990s, mass die-offs of bees were reported in France in the early 2000s, and by the following decade, there was major pressure to implement a control on the use of neonicotinoids.

In 2018, that ban was finally instated despite opposition from agricultural producers, and various interests then remained keen to see whether it made a meaningful effect.

“Our results clearly point to neonicotinoid bans as an effective conservation measure for insectivorous birds,” said Thomas Perrot, from the Foundation for Biodiversity Research in France.

The scientists published their study in the journal Environmental Pollution. Their strategy involved measuring 1.25 mile by 1.25 mile plots of cropland or meadows in 1,900 places across France. The plot surveys were conducted by ornithologists on the lookout for 57 species of birds, and the study ran from 2013-2018 and then again from 2019-2022.

GOOD ENVIRONMENT NEWS: New Safer RNA Insecticide Can Target Only the Devastating Potato Beetles and No Other Bugs

The results identified a 12% increase in the presence of insectivorous birds like chaffinches, blackbirds, and black caps. The authors themselves entitled their paper “weak recovery of insectivorous bird populations after ban of neonicotinoids in France,” an acknowledgement that a 2-3% standardized increase in bird populations could be down to other factors, and that perhaps their original declines seen during the pre-ban period weren’t a result of eating poisoned insects.

After all, if the general messaging on the changing climate in Europe is to be consulted, then other major mortality factors like heatwaves, habitat loss, and wildfires could have reduced bird populations.

“It’s a study that shows there may be early signs of weak population recovery but the results are uncertain and could be down to other correlated factors,” James Pearce-Higgins, director of science at the British Trust for Ornithology, told the Guardian in the wake of the study’s release.

BIRDS COMING BACK: Record-Breaking Night of Bird Migration Caught on Radar During a ‘Perfect Storm’ for Feathered Flight

Perrot addressed the concern, also speaking with the English paper.

“But we think that’s normal, because studies on other pesticides like DDT show that most bird populations take 10 to 25 years to fully recover.”

In the words of every scientist ever published in the history of humanity, then: more research is needed. In the interest of uniting interests, it would make an interesting study to see whether the bird population recovery, should the following years find that it sustains and increases, reduces the burden of crop-eating insects in farmers’ fields. Then maybe insecticide use could be halted voluntarily.

SHARE In The Return Of French Finches With Your Friends On Social Media…

“Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.” – Thomas Aquinas

By
Good News Network
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By Giulia Bertelli (cropped)

Quote of the Day: “Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.” – Thomas Aquinas

Photo by: Giulia Bertelli (cropped)

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

By Giulia Bertelli (cropped)

Good News in History, November 25

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Good News Network
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The Little Galleries at 291 - credit Alfred Stieglitz, public domain

120 years ago today, American photographer Alfred Stieglitz opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue in NYC. This small gallery helped bring art photography to the same stature in America as painting and sculpture, exhibiting famous early photographers like Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude Käsebier, and Clarence H. White. But, it also being an avantgarde gallery space, 291 also hosted the first solo US exhibitions of painters and sculptors like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Paul Cezanne. READ more about this little known American art landmark… (1905)

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Colombia Bans All New Oil and Mining Projects in its Amazon–an Area the Size of Sweden

By
Andy Corbley
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Deforestation in Colombia's Amazonas Department - credit: Lowfill Tarmak, via Flickr.
Deforestation in Colombia’s Amazonas Department – credit: Lowfill Tarmak, via Flickr.

It’s 42% of Colombia’s territory. It’s 7% of the total Amazon Rainforest. It’s the same size as Sweden, and it’s now free from future oil and mineral extraction.

The news that half a million square kilometers of territory in the Amazon biome of Colombia was now limited only to renewable and regenerative economic activities only came out of Brazil, where the 30th annual meeting of the parties to the UN convention on climate change is taking place.

Acting Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres made the announcement, and invited all South American countries to make similar commitments, and coordinate to protect the Amazon’s integrity when massive swaths of it are threatened by extractive activities.

“This declaration is an ethical and scientific commitment. It seeks to prevent forest degradation, river contamination and biodiversity loss that threatens the continent’s climate balance,” Vélez said.

“We do this not only as an act of environmental sovereignty, but as a fraternal call to the other countries that share the Amazon biome, because the Amazon does not know borders and its care requires us to move forward together.”

In Colombia, Vélez noted, some 43 oil blocks and 286 mining requests had currently not yet broken ground in various parts of the Amazon. The measure restricts the expansion of these and new extractive activities in Amazonas, Caquetá, Guaviare, Guainía, Putumayo and Vaupés, departments.

At the Meeting of Ministers, the Special Commission on Environment and Climate (Cemac) was launched, a regional cooperation platform to coordinate actions and mobilize resources in sustainable development, biodiversity, forests and water; confront deforestation and environmental crimes; and promote inclusion with effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities.

MORE BIG AMAZON NEWS: A Nation That’s 90% Rainforest Announces New Protections for Over 25 Million Acres

A statement from Vélez’s ministry detailed that Colombia expressed its full support for the roadmap proposed by the Special Commission on Environment and Climate and reaffirmed its commitment to its implementation.

The Colombian Amazon biome is home to 10% of the planet’s known plant species and supplies the Andean moors that guarantee water supply for millions of people.

SHARE This Bold Commitment To Our Planet’s Biggest Rainforest With Your Friends… 

These Rare Whales Had Never Been Seen Alive, Then Scientists Saw Two Near California

By
Andy Corbley
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The gingko-toothed beaked whale seen in 2024 - credit Craig Hayslip, CC 4.0. Int.
The gingko-toothed beaked whale seen in 2024 – credit Craig Hayslip, CC 4.0. Int.

A lifelong whale researcher recently encountered a living pair of gingko-toothed beaked whales for the first time ever in the wild.

The encounter advances the science of beaked whales enormously, for in addition to confirming the whole genome of the animal, it also linked this elusive species to a well-recorded whale song that can now be used to map their territory and protect them, potentially, from hazards like military sonar.

In 2024, an expedition was conducted off northwestern Baja California, Mexico, to find and identify the beaked whale species that produced a unique echolocation pulse codenamed BW43, which had previously been recorded in the area and elsewhere in the North Pacific.

At the time, the crew, led by Oregon State University researcher Robert Pitman, believed they were searching for Perrin’s beaked whale, but they were in for a surprise. For hours the vessel, owned and operated by OSU, bobbed around on the surface of the water until a set of high-powered binoculars saw several whales surface off the starboard side.

The pair looked like juveniles surfacing and diving, and without being able to get a clear visual ID, Pitman pulled out a modified crossbow, and shot a corded bolt that extracted a piece of skin and blubber from the whale no bigger than a pencil-top eraser.

Aside from the fear that some naughty albatrosses would rob the precious cargo as it was reeled in, it was a moment of pure exhilaration. The BW43 call had been recorded, and they knew that it was almost certainly the case that whichever whales those had seen were responsible for making it.

It turned out not to be Perrin’s beaked whale, but the gingko-toothed beaked whale, which like the former, had never been seen alive in the wild before.

“I can’t even describe the feeling because it was something that we had worked towards for so long,” says Elizabeth Henderson, a researcher at the US military’s Naval Information Warfare Center and lead author of the resulting paper published in Marine Mammal Science, who was also there that day. “Everybody on the boat was cheering because we had it, we finally had it.”

Beaked whales are the most poorly understood mammals on Earth. 24 species are known to exist, and almost all of them are only known through brief surface sightings and dead specimens that have washed up on beaches.

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Little is known about any of them, other than that they are the deepest-diving of all marine mammals, and that their tusks grow out like a deer’s antlers and are used for combat. They feed on squid and can suffer from decompression sickness akin to a human diver if surfacing from their deep water dives too quickly. They don’t surface near the shore, and they don’t like boats.

Henderson had been tracking the culprit behind BW43 since 2020. The spot where they eventually made the confirmation of the gingko-toothed whale had been visited thrice before, previously with chartered fishing boats. It was only in 2024 when she partnered with OSU and Pitman that the team finally found what they were looking for. It meant Pitman had seen 90 of the 94 whale species on our planet.

MORE ABOUT OF THESE CREATURES: Scientists Had Never Seen This Elusive Whale Alive—Until Now

Interestingly, the gingko-toothed whales almost exclusively strand themselves or wash up dead on the other side of the Pacific—in Japan or Australia.

“There were two strandings on the west coast of North America previously, but they had always been assumed to have been anomalous—animals that washed ashore, or were sick,” Henderson told the Guardian. “But now we know that that’s not true and that they actually occupy these waters year-round.”

SPLASH The News Of This Successful Hunt For A Rare Whale With Your Friends… 

Exoskeleton Walker Allows Children to Take Their First Steps After Doctors Said They Couldn’t

By
Andy Corbley
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credit - Trexo Robotics
– credit, courtesy of Trexo Robotics.

At a Canadian wellness center, a unique robotic exoskeleton is allowing children with developmental disorders to walk—often for the first time.

The nonprofit’s Regina location is eager to get families to come by and try it out. It can be used to correct a child’s gait or help them take their first steps, and is suitable for a variety of conditions including spinal cord injuries and cerebral palsy.

First Steps Wellness Center received the Trexo exoskeleton out of the goodness of someone’s heart. The $100,000 machine was donated to help children like Leo, a boy born with a rare genetic disease which left him a prognosis that walking would be forever out of reach.

But latched into the Trexo walker at First Steps, his mother Anna Begelfer has watched her son learn to walk and develop a musculature that has him able to take steps on his own, something she was told would be impossible.

“He can walk. He can be part of [sic] like everybody else; walk like other kids,” she told CBC News. “I have butterflies, I’m like, I can’t believe.”

Strapped into the walking machine, sensors at the hip and knees detect how the child is moving its lower trunk and legs, then send commands to motors that move the exoskeleton in order to assist their steps or complete them entirely. Unlike other walking devices, Trexo allows the child’s feet to touch the ground, which First Step’s Andy Schmidt says makes a big difference.

“It’s better for the bones, it’s better for feedback for the child. I mean Imagine if you or I were wandering around on clouds of air, what would that feel like? It wouldn’t give much feedback,” he said.

Like many of the world’s best inventions, Trexo Robotics was born out of personal experience. Manmeet Maggu and Rahul Udasi, two friends who were attending the University of Waterloo were distraught when they learned Maggu’s nephew in India was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a disease that affects some 500,000 American children.

Trexo co-founders Manmeet Maggu and Rahul Udasi – credit, courtesy of Trexo Robotics.

Looking into what that would mean for the child, the pair learned that he would have to spend most of his life in a wheelchair, and suffer the health complications resulting from so much sitting. Imagining that an exoskeleton could help, they quickly learned there was no such device available on the market.

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It was years of prototyping designs, 3D printing components, and asking Udasi for help before Maggu flew to India to try it out on his nephew.

“The first time we tried it it didn’t work,” Maggu told Tech Crunch. “But my brother has a factory in India in Delhi, so we made some more modifications and tried it out again and I watched my nephew try to walk with the device for the first time.”

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There are currently 6 Trexo exoskeletons sold and in use today, which was possible by marketing it as an exercise and therapy device. It allowed Maggu to circumvent some major delays in jumping through FDA regulatory hoops but also meant that it couldn’t be covered by any insurance policies, so it’s currently available for lease or rent to help families absorb its cost.

The bottom line is that even though it comes at a price similar to a new car, young Leo wasn’t ever supposed to be able to walk, but with the help of Trexo, he can—a miracle—and you can’t put a price on a miracle.

WATCH Leo go in the video below…

SHARE This Heartwarming Video Of Leo And Great News For Children…

Play These Mobile Games Designed to Help Save Dying Aboriginal Language and Culture

By
Andy Corbley
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Screenshots from the Nyiyaparli living language project app - credit, supplied by Nyiyaparli Widi
Screenshots from the Nyiyaparli living language project app – credit, supplied by Nyiyaparli Widi

An Australian Aboriginal community with only 8 fluent speakers left has launched a mobile phone game to help reconnect their youth with the tongue of their ancestors.

The game allows you to help preserve a wetland nature reserve where the community lives, with almost 100 words and phrases in the Nyiyaparli language.

Numbering around 400 community members, the Nyiyaparli hail from a remote region of northwest Australia in an area called the Pilbara. There, as happened in so many other lands across the Commonwealth, indigenous children were placed in English-language institutions and the connection with their lingual heritage was severed.

Once widely spoken across the Pilbara, the pressure of assimilation into European culture and the spread of larger neighboring Aboriginal languages has proven almost fatal to Nyiyaparli.

The Karlka Nyiyaparli Aboriginal Corporation (KNAC) which manages the common welfare of the community launched the Nyiyaparli Living Language Project in 2022 in an attempt to save their dying language. But the KNAC didn’t look to the past for inspiration, rather, they leveraged the present.

“The cultural working group decided that you’re never going to take phones away from kids,” said the project’s executive producer Simon Te Brinke. “Why not give them something that can help them learn?”

Despite their remote location and rich indigenous heritage, Nyiyaparli children seem to be as immersed in games like Minecraft and Fortnite as anyone else. Te Brinke decided to try and utilize that existing interest: to go with the flow, rather than try to convince them to put their phones down.

The game puts you into the role of a junior ranger in the Fortescue Marsh Nature Reserve which the community manages. The game contains 90 Nyiyaparli words, spoken aloud by community elders who know how.

“Players have to collect cultural objects as they navigate their way through each of the locations,” Mr. Te Brinke told ABC News. “As they collect, they hear sounds and words actually spoken in Nyiyaparli. So it’s reinforcing the language.”

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The game has won several awards that included large cash prices which will undoubtedly help the project expand its efforts. A digital language center is in the works, with the aim being to build on the foundations established by the phone game.

Apps and games are being used to help revive other Aboriginal languages too. A storybook app that teaches science concepts was designed by a man from the Goldfields region of northern Australia, who’s one of only 3 people who speak Ngalia, a dialect of a more widely spoken Mantjiltjintjarra, that’s featured in the application.

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Kabo Muir worked with his brother Talbot, another speaker, to compile a dictionary of Ngalia words, which benefits from the fact that it’s similar to the surrounding tongues in the region. The next step to preserving it, he says, is innovation.

The Mamutjitji Story app centers around a native insect species called an antlion, and how it adapts to a changing world.

SHARE This Innovative Way Of Using Modern Tech To Save An Ancient Language…

“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” – Anne Wilson Schaef 

By
Good News Network
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Leonardo Iheme

Quote of the Day: “Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” – Anne Wilson Schaef 

Photo by: Leonardo Iheme

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Leonardo Iheme
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